There have been many evidence which are either indirect or circumstantial which have long implicated the government of China and its surrogates about various digital espionage incidents along with many other incidents which relate to US corporation hacking. However the reach was to many more US government-owned databases and websites. One cannot forget the Gmail hacking episode which turned ugly as Google was forced to make a protest for its censorship from China and it went ahead to get itself withdrawn from the Chinese search market. The Chinese on their part have been firm on denial of any such accusations, even thought there was enough evidence mounted for the news.
But things look to change with a broadcast which came from the Chinese state TV which indicates that the cyber attacks are and were rolling out of China against U.S. The evidence shows Chinese state-sponsored “cyberattacks”. The footage was screened in mid-July and might had been boring for any common individual, but this addition of hacking U.S. website, just creates unwanted visitors for the footage.
Wall Street Journal reported that the footage of the Chinese state television contains two Chinese experts detailing about the Chinese military. However the WSJ, said that it appeared that it was a software of the military institute demonstrating which had its design specified for attacking websites in the U.S.
The video posted below includes IP address 138.26.72.17 which opens up in a drop down option of a software where it was written “Choose Attack Target.” Clicking then on the ‘Attack’ button placed at the bottom left corner. It then shows that the software starts attacking the said IP address which is says is a Falun Gong website. However, IP address 138.26.72.17 was later know to belong to the University of Alabama in Birmingham (UAB), which was detailed with the help of an online trace.
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The Chinese TV report appeared to have an ‘admission’ of hacking which seems to be sponsored by the Chinese state. This could ring the bells for North American corporation and the whole of U.S. Another notable point is that U.S. debt has a big chunk poured in by China. Again there are many companies which have major dependence on manufacturing from the Chinese warehouse. For example, products of mobile phone and PC industries.
In May this year, U.S. Defence Department had compounded the diplomatic challenge and the problem by issuing a statement which stated that cyberattacks can be considered “acts of war”. They went ahead saying that they might have to respond in a conventional military style. The extract of the article says:
The Pentagon, trying to create a formal strategy to deter cyberattacks on the United States, plans to issue a new strategy soon declaring that a computer attack from a foreign nation can be considered an act of war that may result in a military response.
With a assumed evidence which has just added to the pile of evidences against China, it would be worthy to see how do Europe and U.S. respond to such hacking which has been persistently directed at EU and North American government agencies and corporations. Talking about a response via launching a direct military attack, it should be noted that it is clearly out of question as there is varied interdependency of these two counties.
In the times to come, however there would be many hacking matters followed by counter measures corresponding to such hacking. The cold cyber war has just moved a bit, but its conclusion could have an inclusion of a few personal touches which might have been masked by diplomacy and public smiles as for now.